EDITORIAL: Take politics out of state board appointments

Published: Friday, February 8, 2013 at 08:14 PM.

By all appearances this measure looks like a political formula for mandating policy changes based on nothing more than ideology and politics. Republican leaders should be looking for a way to take politics out of this particular process, not put in more.

The system for appointing members to state boards and commissions has long needed an overhaul. Unfortunately, this shouldn’t be it.

For too many years to count, North Carolina’s boards and commissions have been packed — largely by Democrats because they were in charge for so long — with friends, campaign contributors, assorted political hangers on and a core group of knowledgeable experts who were usually, but not always, affiliated with the party in charge.

It was an open secret. Everyone knew it. One or two big campaign donors even publicly griped over the years because they felt slighted by governors who failed to give them a plum assignment on one key regulatory or policy board or another.

That didn’t make it good, either. In fact, it was very bad. It needed a makeover.

Now Republican leadership in the General Assembly wants to, as the expression goes, “kick it up a notch.”

Just call it taking a bad system and potentially making it much worse.

Tuesday the state Senate Rules Committee passed a bill that would fire every single member of eight boards and commissions and replace them all with hand-picked appointees by GOP leaders, largely Gov. Pat McCrory. On the hit list are the North Carolina Utilities Commission, state Industrial Commission, Coastal Resources Commission, Coastal Resources Advisory Council, state Lottery Commission, Environmental Management Commission, Wildlife Resources Commission, and N.C. Turnpike Authority. The targets also include state Board of Elections chairman Larry Leake and 12 superior court judges.

The grand total? One-hundred-thirty-one people who serve terms that eventually expire, just not all at once.

Senate Republicans were pretty brazen in putting this bill forward.

State Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, said job performance wasn’t the issue at all. He said the GOP wants members who “are more like-minded and willing to carry out the philosophy of the new administration.” He also said the governor’s office should begin to wield power as soon as possible.

Scary words from a lawmaker on any level or with any party. And it’s a good bet that more than a few very highly qualified and exceptional people would be ousted along with some of the political driftwood should this wrongheaded bill be passed.

Rabon did point out that the move could make the state more efficient and estimated the potential savings at $2 million — but didn’t specify how that would be achieved.

Yes, it’s natural and perfectly legal for the party in power to fill vacancies on these boards as they become available naturally. But cutting terms for all across the board — and ignoring a long-held process of staggered terms and appointments — appears to be a politically driven steam shovel digging for greater power at the expense of opposing points of view that should be legitimately up for debate.

For example, the bill would alter how the governor would make appointments to the Coastal Resources Commission, according to the Charlotte Observer. McCrory would no longer have to appoint at least one person from a conservation organization. Instead, he would appoint two involved with land development.

Sound balanced? Not really.

By all appearances this measure looks like a political formula for mandating policy changes based on nothing more than ideology and politics. Republican leaders should be looking for a way to take politics out of this particular process, not put in more.

The system for appointing members to state boards and commissions has long needed an overhaul. Unfortunately, this shouldn’t be it.